Journal Article
Long-term health care: is social insurance desirable?
Gokhale, Jagadeesh; Leovic, Lydia K. (1993-12)
A look at why the private insurance market has failed to cover long-term care risks adequately, and an evaluation of several proposals for funding such care through social insurance.
Economic Commentary , Issue Dec

Working Paper
Demographic change, generational accounts, and national saving in the United States
Gokhale, Jagadeesh (1996)
An investigation of how alternative population projections affect measurement of the intergenerational imbalance in the distribution of resources and an analysis of the impact of demographic change on U.S. national saving.
Working Papers (Old Series) , Paper 9603

Journal Article
The decline in U.S. saving rates: a cause for concern?
Gokhale, Jagadeesh (1993-09)
An examination of the decline in the net national saving rate since the early 1980s, which identifies an ongoing, fiscally induced wealth redistribution toward older generations and a sizable gain in annuitized forms of saving as underlying reasons.
Economic Commentary , Issue Sep

Journal Article
The consumer price index and national saving
Gokhale, Jagadeesh; Bryan, Michael F. (1995-10)
An argument that lowering COLAs for Social Security benefits and adjusting the Consumer Price Index to better reflect the cost-of-living increases that result from inflation will alleviate two long-range problems: escalating federal budget deficits and exceedingly low national saving.
Economic Commentary , Issue Oct

Journal Article
Generational accounts for the United States: an update
Sturrock, John R.; Gokhale, Jagadeesh; Page, Benjamin R. (1997-10)
An examination of the continuing generational imbalance in U.S. fiscal policy, showing that under current policy, future generations will have to pay almost half of their lifetime labor incomes in net taxes to balance the government's book--more than 70% greater than the 28.6% today's newborns are slated to give up.
Economic Review , Issue Q IV , Pages 2-23

Working Paper
The equity of social services provided to children and senior citizens
Kotlikoff, Laurence J.; Gokhale, Jagadeesh (1993)
A consideration of the degree of equity in the U.S. government's treatment of children vis-a-vis adults, particularly the elderly. The authors show that given current policy, today's and tomorrow's children could end up paying as much as 70 percent of their lifetime income to the government, whereas the current elderly will pay only about 25 percent on average.
Working Papers (Old Series) , Paper 9311

Journal Article
Medicare: usual and customary remedies will no longer work
Gokhale, Jagadeesh (1997-04)
A description of the structural deficiencies that have led to Medicare's impending bankruptcy, and a discussion of the merits of alternative approaches to extending the program's long-term viability. The author argues that the best approach is to adopt a "defined contribution" plan that will restore consumers' interest in economizing on health care services and boost competition among providers and insurers.
Economic Commentary , Issue Apr

Journal Article
Fiscal policy in an era of surpluses
Gokhale, Jagadeesh (2001-04)
Federal surpluses have come as a pleasant surprise, but using them to finance additional government spending would be disastrous. By the middle of the next decade, Social Security and Medicare outlays will soar beyond projected payroll taxes. While using the surpluses to offset future entitlement payments is a good idea, finding a way to do it is not so easy. This Commentary suggests it could be accomplished by paying down the national debt and combining the remaining surplus with Social Security reform.
Economic Commentary , Issue Apr

Working Paper
What does the capital income tax distort?
Gokhale, Jagadeesh; Cai, Jinyong (1990)
In addition to taxing future consumption (including leisure), capital income taxation subsidizes the consumption of durables. the taxation of future consumption may be characterized as an intertemporal distortion, while the subsidy to durables may be characterized as a static distortion. the magnitude of this intertemporal distortion has received considerable attention, but few analyses have dealt with the static distortion. ; This paper decomposes the excess burden arising from capital income taxation into its static and intertemporal components. the analysis is based on a life-cycle model ...
Working Papers (Old Series) , Paper 9013

Journal Article
The welfare loss from a capital income tax
Gokhale, Jagadeesh; Cai, Jinyong (1997-01)
A decomposition of the welfare loss from a capital income tax into its two components: the intertemporal (consuming today versus tomorrow) and the within-period or static (consuming durable versus nondurable goods). Its calculations, which use a calibrated life-cycle model with a representative consumer, suggest that ignoring the static distortion may lead to substantial underestimation of the total welfare loss.
Economic Review , Issue Q I , Pages 2-10